Entries associated with the tag "Iran":

I won't give Pat Buchanan a pass for the dirty tricks and baloney he's served up on his watch, but on Iran he's got more sense than most:

"It would be an obscenity, we are told, if Ahmadinejad were allowed to place a wreath at Ground Zero. This is a public-relations stunt that should never be permitted.

"That the Iranian president has PR in mind is undoubtedly true. Much of what national leaders do is symbolic. But that wreath-laying would have said something else, as well.

"It would have said that, to Iran, these Americans were victims who deserve to be honored and mourned and, by extension, the men who killed them were murderers. Bin Laden celebrates 9/11. So do all America-haters. By laying a wreath at Ground Zero, the president of Iran would be saying that in the war between al-Qaeda and the United States, he and his country side with the United States.

"How would we have been hurt by letting him send this message?"

Read the whole thing. Buchanan enumerates the far greater criminals and far more dangerous leaders -- Mao and Khrushchev, for two -- who Republican presidents have welcomed and dealt with in the recent past. Ahmadinejad isn't in their league.

"America and Iran have great differences, but also common interests. Among the latter, no Taliban in Kabul, no restoration of a Sunni Ba'athist dictatorship in Baghdad, and support for the present governments. Iran cannot want a Sunni-Shia war in the region, which would make her an enemy of most Arabs, and she cannot want a major war with America, which could lead to the destruction and breakup of the nation where only half the people are Persians.

"That is plenty to build a cold peace on, if the hysterics do not stampede us into another unnecessary war."

Former CIA Middle East officer Robert Baer in Time:

"Strengthening the Administration's case for a strike on Iran, there's a belief among neo-cons that the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] is the one obstacle to a democratic and friendly Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC, the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with Iran over. It's another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White House thinking. And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it's not even a consideration. 'IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this Administration. There will be an attack on Iran.'"

Somewhere along here the Bush administration has gone from wilfully ignorant to batshit crazy. The lesson going back at least to World War II is that bombing doesn't make the bombed population love the bombers, it unites them behind their leaders, no matter how evil.

Speaking of wilful ignorance, Rick Perlstein corrects some right-wing lies about Vietnam here. More here if you need a refresher course.

Of course, the spectacle of a right-wing president tying his foolish war to a liberal president's foolish war is bound to make one look around for alternatives. I have said, and will say, a lot of harsh things about dogmatic libertarianism, but one question libertarians -- unlike conservatives -- can be counted on to ask is, "Is this war really necessary?" The other day the Cato Institute's Jonathan Logan put it this way:

"President Bush's strategy for Iraq amounts to playing for time and hoping for a miracle. Bizarrely, the president has now invoked the Vietnam analogy in an effort to shore updomestic support for the war by reminding us that bad things happened after we left. This is true. It is also worth remembering that U.S. soldiers stopped dying after we left, and that the 'dominoes' that were to have fallen didn't fall. The United States won the Cold War just a decade and a half later. Our defeat in Vietnam did not prevent victory in the Cold War, and defeat in Iraq will not ensure defeat in the struggle against terrorism."

As with lying and torture, war so rarely works the way you want it to:

"The United States, in three years of war, which began with shock-and-awe bombardment and goes on with day-to-day violence and chaos, has been an utter failure in its claimed objective of bringing democracy and stability to Iraq. The Israeli invasion and bombing of Lebanon has not brought security to Israel; indeed it has increased the number of its enemies, whether in Hezbollah or Hamas or among Arabs who belong to neither of those groups."

That's lefty historian Howard Zinn, but his argument doesn't require that you agree with his positions on other issues.

In the same vein, Billmon distills Charles Krauthammer's latest opinion down to its essential absurdity:

"America must attack Iran even if sets the Middle East on fire, because the Iranians are crazy and might set the Middle East on fire."

As is often the case, women have a firmer grasp of these matters, from ancient Greek drama to present-day Colombian reality.

The indispensable Billmon points us to a sober and methodical 26-page report by retired U.S. Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner for the Century Foundation, "The End of the 'Summer of Diplomacy':  Assessing U.S. Military Options on Iran." (PDF)

It's a quick and easy read, but not a pleasant one. In a sentence: War with Iran will accomplish nothing we want, and a lot that we don't.

"At the end of the path that the administration seems to have chosen [systematic air bombardment], will the issues with Iran have been resolved? No. Will the region be better off? No. Is it clear Iran will abandon its nuclear program? No. On the other hand, can Iran defeat the United States militarily? No. Will the United States force a regime change on Iran? In all probability it will not. Will the economy of the United States suffer? In all probability it will. Will the United States have weakened its position in the Middle East? Yes. Will the United States have reduced its influence in the world? Yes."

The difference between presidents like Bush and professionals like Gardiner is the difference between a bully and a fighter. A bully wants to (watch someone else) fight. A fighter knows how to fight when he or she has to, and knows how to determine when he or she has to.